Sectional game board



April 24, 1934. B. EKBOM SECTIONAL GAME BOARD Filed D60. 16, 1932 Wen/$07? Patented Apr. 24, 1934 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE Application December 16, 1932, Serial No. 647,561 In Sweden December 21, 1931 3 Claims.

The known games involving the moving of pieces or men over a chequered board, such as chess, draughts, fox and geese, halma, etc., possess the characteristic feature that the division of the board into squares is regular. It has, however, been proposed, with the object of making the play more varying and interesting, to build up the board from a number of concentric rings, each ring having differently valued squares. The board as a whole could then be altered in aspect by turning the rings at will. However, there are drawbacks in that the shape of the board becomes unsuitable, since the size of the squares decreases towards the centre, and in that the possibilities of variation are relatively limited. It has also been proposed for certain war games and the like to make various arrangements, so that the surface of the board could be altered by a leader, for example by placing false tops on the squares. In this case, the aspect of the board would each time depend upon the leaders intentions.

The present invention concerns a chequered board, the squares of which can be arranged in an unlimited number of different combinations and a certain degree of hazard is introduced. According to the invention, the board is composed of a number of bars or strips, each made up of squares or fields of dissimilar valuespreferably only one row in eachwhich bars can be shuflled like cards before being assembled together to form a board. If, for instance, the board is comprised of 12 such bars, each containing 12 dissimilar squares, 2 of which are coloured differently from the remainder, several million variations can be obtained by combining the bars in different ways. The board then assumes, to a large extent, the character of a field of play possessing an irregular terrain, the pieces being moved in such a way as to utilize the possibilities of the said terrain.

The rules of play can naturally be varied in many ways within the scope of the invention as, for example, those squares marked in a certain manner either must not be covered or they imply a certain protection for pieces standing on or in the vicinity of them. The game can be played with pieces having the same value, as in draughts, or having different values, as in chess. In all cases, the pieces can preferably be shaped as round blocks, with their value marked by numbers or otherwise. The number of players can vary from one-in analogy with patience or solitaire--upwards, but should not, as a rule, exceed.

four.

The detailed design of the board itself can naturally be varied in many ways. For example, it can be considered suitable either to assemble the bars in a frame or to hold them together by through-running bolts or wood or metal. Such an a design is shown in cross-section in Figure 2 of the accompanying drawing, where the bars 1 are held together by the bolts 2 which fit in corresponding holes in the bars. Figure 1 shows four bars in plan. The bars can be marked differently on either side, so that the variation possibilities are further increased. Figure 3 shows in smaller scale a board built up as described.

I claim as my invention:--

1. A game board comp-rising a plurality of flat bars having two opposite surfaces which are divided into playing squares or fields of two or more contrasting markings, the order of sequence of the contrastingly marked squares of all or some bars being different upon the two surfaces, and means for holding said bars together to form a board.

2. A game board comprising a plurality of bars assembled in side by side relation, said bars having a plane surface which is divided into playing squares or fields of two or more contrasting markings, the order of sequence of the contrastingly marked squares being irregular and different upon all or some of the separate bars composing the game board.

3. A game board comprising a plurality of bars, each having a plane surface, said bars being assembled in side by side relation in such a manner that the plane surface on the various bars makes one continuous plane playing surface, the plane surface of each bar is divided into playing squares or fields of two or more contrasting markings, the order of sequence of the contrastingly marked squares being different upon the separate bars composing the game board, said bars each having a hole through same, said holes in the various bars composing the game board being arranged to align with each other, and a bolt passing through said holes to hold the bars together to form said board.

BERTIL EKBOM. 

